BG Reads | News You Need to Know (March 15, 2022)
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
Commissioners want business, tech funds to support creative sector (Austin Monitor)
The Austin business community, particularly the technology companies flocking to the area, will likely be asked this year to increase their support for a creative sector that is being squeezed by the rising cost of living across the city.
Members of the Arts and Music commissions have formed a working group focused on increasing awareness of the effects large employers moving into the area have on home prices and development patterns, with a long-term goal of developing a strategy to raise more private sector money for creative spaces and work opportunities.
The work is in the very early stages, but Arts Commission meetings for much of the past year have included discussions of how to identify new sources of funding for cultural arts uses beyond the city’s share of revenue from the Hotel Occupancy Tax paid by tourists. That pool of money has been severely reduced in recent years because of the Covid-19 pandemic, though there is support growing for the city to reach an agreement with short-term rental platforms that would collect and remit an estimated additional $20 million annually in hotel taxes.
Lauryn Gould, a Music Commission member participating in the working group, said public-private partnerships between the city’s new economic development corporation or existing arts nonprofits could help to enable large donations from the tech and business community. The EDC is primarily focused on preserving and opening new creative spaces using municipal funds, though its structure allows it to work with private money as well… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Capital Factory launches Center for Autonomous Robotics in Austin (Austin Inno)
It's not easy to test experimental drones in downtown Austin. That's why Capital Factory and Guinn Partners on March 13 launched a new hub for startups to develop drones and autonomous vehicles next to a wide open swath of land just southwest of the Pennybacker Bridge in West Austin.
The Center for Autonomous Robotics is spread across 10,000 square feet on the third floor of the Plaza on the Lake building. It has about 60 desks, including several with expansive views of Lake Austin, as well as two specially ventilated and equipped labs for 3D printing and robotics work.
But the real draw is the big backyard. It's the size of several football fields, and provides plenty of space above ground and the adjacent Colorado River, aka Lake Austin, to test vehicles of all kinds — land, air and water… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Using neighborhood demographics might create deeply affordable (Austin Monitor)
As Austin’s housing affordability crisis deepens, public officials and advocates are looking for ways to create more income-restricted homes – especially those that are affordable to people at the lowest end of the income spectrum. One idea, floated by the Planning Commission on Tuesday, is changing how the city calculates a key metric of affordability: median family income.
Income restrictions for affordable homes are currently tied to the median family income of the Austin-Round Rock metropolitan statistical area, which in 2021 was $98,900 for a family of four. This means that only people making a certain percentage of the area MFI – usually anywhere from 30 to 80 percent, depending on the development – qualify to buy or rent affordable units. Commissioners wondered if using neighborhood MFI would be a better policy.
The idea is that pegging MFI to the neighborhood level would bring deeply affordable units to poorer neighborhoods, since the MFI in those areas is lower than the area MFI. Commissioner Carmen Llanes Pulido pointed out that using area MFI means affordable units in lower-income neighborhoods are not actually affordable for many current residents. “The so-called affordable units would also be gentrifying units,” Llanes Pulido said, explaining that the new units might bring higher-income people to the neighborhood.
While switching to neighborhood-level MFI sounds good in theory, in practice it might not be equitable or even legal, according to Erica Leak with the Housing and Planning Department. “(The policy) would actually be contrary to Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing,” Leak said, referring to part of the 1968 Fair Housing Act which requires cities that receive federal housing funds to uphold and advance fair housing practices… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
How ‘silicon cities’ Austin, Miami are tackling tech growth, affordability woes (KXAN)
As the tech industry rises to the forefront of job growth and innovation, the traditional Silicon Valley in the San Francisco Bay Area has expanded to silicon cities across the country, including in Miami and Austin. On Sunday, Austin Mayor Steve Adler and Miami Mayor Francis Suarez sat down during the South by Southwest Conference & Festivals to talk about becoming some of the leading national tech hubs, and how both cities are working to address the affordability crisis challenging residents in conjunction. “How do you keep both the cultural spirit but also, how do we keep people from falling out of their houses as extraordinary wealth pours into these towns?” asked Jacob Ward, technology correspondent for NBC News and panel moderator. Ward referenced his experience covering encampments comprising thousands of people living near San Jose’s airport, only a few miles from some of the nation’s highest concentrations of wealth.
For Adler, he said a critical response to Austin’s lack of affordability is concentrating efforts on expanding housing supplies within the city to combat the skyrocketing housing market prices. Consulting with cities in Silicon Valley — particularly San Francisco — that have seen a heightened concentration of people experiencing homelessness, those city leaders’ advice was simple: Don’t try and hide the problem. “The single best correlator with increased homelessness is increased housing costs,” Adler said, adding: “We made it very visible in our community. We have a community now that’s rallied around trying to invest in the services and in the homes and in the entire operating system.” Adler referenced the Homeless Strategy Division’s $515 million plan to, over a three-year time period, provide housing for 3,000 people in Austin. “It gives us the capacity, all the way from emergency sheltering up to permanent supportive housing, so that we can house people at the same rate that they find themselves on the street,” he said. “And then we can take people off the streets, because the longer somebody stays on the streets, the harder it is to get off the street.” For Suarez, he said the affordability crises plaguing Austin and Miami are not unique to either city, but rather a reflection of national trends. Now, he said, many cities are experiencing a perfect storm of factors: urbanization and heightened housing demand, unprecedented levels of inflation and extensive gentrification… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Friday was the second-busiest day ever at Austin’s airport (KXAN)
Spring break travel fueled the second-busiest day ever at Austin Bergstrom International Airport on Friday, according to new data released by airport officials.
A total of 34,487 passengers went through TSA security on March 11. That’s about 800 fewer passengers than the all-time record, set on the Monday after F1 weekend in 2021.
Meanwhile, Thursday, March 10, clocked in as the fifth-busiest day ever, with more than 31,400 passengers.
The numbers only show passengers who pass through security before boarding a departing flight, so people arriving in Austin for SXSW are not included… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
No money for Texas restaurants in Congress’ $1.5 trillion omnibus spending bill (Dallas Morning News)
Despite lobbyists’ pleas to pump $50 billion into the Restaurant Revitalization Fund, Congress did not tack on rescue money for restaurants in its latest spending package passed by the House on March 9, 2022, and the Senate on March 11, 2022. The $1.5 trillion omnibus spending package includes $782 billion for defense, $112 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs, $27 billion for child nutrition programs, $17.5 billion for high-poverty schools, $13.6 billion for Ukraine support and $1 billion for a cancer initiative. The bill is now headed to President Joe Biden’s desk. The Restaurant Revitalization Fund was a $28.6 billion package that earmarked funds first to veterans, women and those who are socially or economically disadvantaged. More than 175,000 restaurateurs and bar owners applied for the grant and have been waiting for relief, according to the Independent Restaurant Coalition.
The Texas Restaurant Association reported in January 2022 that 12,055 Texas business owners were promised RRF grants and never received them. TRA CEO and president Emily Williams Knight says the lack of extra funding from Congress leaves thousands of Texas restaurateurs “waiting for help to pick up the pieces for themselves after two years of financial upheaval that still has no end in sight.” Veteran David Jordan, who owns Patriot Sandwich Co. in Denton, was promised $86,000 in RRF funding from the Small Business Administration. That money was rescinded after anti-discrimination lawsuits blocked funds for veterans in Texas and Tennessee. Patriot Sandwich Co. closed in 2021, after Jordan ran out of money. Sean Kennedy, executive vice president of the National Restaurant Association, said in a statement that Congress’ choice to not re-fund the RRF “is a gut punch to the 177,000 restaurants who now have some incredibly difficult decisions ahead of them.” Jordan is still angry that the $86,000 didn’t materialize… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Gov. Greg Abbott replaces Texas military leader who has overseen heavily criticized border mission (Texas Tribune)
Gov. Greg Abbott announced Monday he has replaced Maj. Gen. Tracy Norris as leader of the Texas Military Department after months of criticism that her handling of his highly touted border mission had led to deplorable living conditions for troops.
In a news release, Abbott said Norris’ term expired in February and Maj. Gen. Thomas M. Suelzer, who formerly oversaw the Texas Air Guard, was the military department’s new leader as of Monday.
Norris began her three-year tenure at the helm of the department in 2019 but came under heavy criticism in recent months after a massive ramp-up of Operation Lone Star last fall led to pay issues, poor living conditions and a lack of appropriate gear for troops on the mission.
An investigation co-published by The Texas Tribune and Military Times found that many of the issues plaguing the mission were not only byproducts of the mission’s hasty expansion, but also similar to problems faced during the department’s last major state deployment, during Hurricane Harvey… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
States consider gas tax pauses as prices spike (The Hill)
Governors and state legislators are considering moves to suspend state gas taxes as the cost of fuel continues to soar to record levels, a bipartisan effort that comes as high prices hammer household budgets across the nation… (LINK TO FULL STORY)